


Not What He Seems

by TheCephalopodAgency



Series: Trust No One [2]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Betrayal, Gen, and i fully approve of her choice, but in this what if au, dipper feels betrayed, dipper is not a happy camper, mabel had good intentions, potential origins of dark dipper
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-25 23:03:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14388954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCephalopodAgency/pseuds/TheCephalopodAgency
Summary: Dipper and Mabel's relationship has taken a blow after the events of Sock Opera, but when the chance comes to fix her mistakes, she only deals another blow to the fragile trust between them.





	Not What He Seems

Dipper’s hand was about to come down on the red button when Grunkle Stan’s voice yelled “don’t touch that button!” He started, missing the button and clipping the side with his hand. Stan held his hands up in a surrendering gesture and edged closer to them. “Dipper please, don't press that shutdown button, you gotta trust me.”

 

“And I should trust you why? After you stole radioactive waste? After you _lied_ to us all summer?! I don’t even know who you are!” It was worse because on some level, he always _had_ trusted his great uncle. Even after Mabel betrayed his trust, Stan was still… but he might not even be Stan at all. He reached for the button again.

 

“Look, I know this all seems nuts, but I need that machine to stay on. If you just let me explain--” The watch on his wrist beeped and the nauseating scent of ozone came back, stronger than ever now he was closer to the portal. Stan barked out a warning but it was too late. They were all drifting away from the floor. Dipper tried to swat at the button before it was too late, but he missed.

 

“T-minus thirty five seconds.”

 

Dipper was spinning away from the button and the portal. Right as he thought he would never stop, he crashed into a wooden support that split from the ceiling. He clung to it like his life depended on it, heart racing in his chest. The ground was so far he would certainly break something important if gravity returned to normal and he fell.

 

“Dipper!” Mabel’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts and still hugging the beam tightly, he angled his head in her direction. She was still near the portal, her foot caught in a thick cable.

 

“Mabel! Shut it down!” He pointed to the button. Time was steadily ticking down. Mabel started pulling herself down the cable, hugging it close to her body.

 

“No!” Stan pushed away from the wall and swam through the the air. Mabel reached the end of the cable and grabbed onto the button platform.

 

‘Come on Mabel, come on!’ He screamed mentally. Twenty seven seconds, the world was going to end in twenty seven seconds if Mabel didn’t push the button.

 

“Mabel, Mabel wait! Stop!” Stan stretched his arm out, narrowly missing the platform when Soos crashed into him, sending them both tumbling through the air and away from Mabel. They grappled with each other, but Stan was no match for Soos. He wrapped his arms and legs around Stan and clung to him like a leech, making movement almost impossible. He managed to get his arms free and started hitting Soos in an attempt to get him to let go. Without thinking, Dipper kicked off his beam and flew through the air to aid him.

 

He crashed into Stan and started clawing at his face. “Mabel! Press the red button! Shut it down!” Stan grabbed him and pushed him down.

 

“No you can’t! You gotta trust me!”

 

“Grunkle Stan! I don’t even know if you’re my Grunkle!” She was crying, thick tears rolling up her face and wetting her hair. “I wanna believe you but--”

 

“Then listen to me!” Stan pleaded. “Remember this morning when I said I wanted to tell you guys something?”

 

“T-minus twenty seconds.” Dipper looked at the countdown clock, fear clawing at his insides like some sort of parasite eating him alive.

 

“Mab-- augh!” The portal was a bright ring of colors, spewing out clouds of energy that pushed the three of them back. Dipper yelled as he went spinning again and crashed into the wall.

 

“I wanted to say that you're gonna hear some bad things about me, and some of them are true! But trust me, everything I've worked for, everything I care about, it's all for this family!”

 

“Mabel he's lying! This thing could destroy the universe, listen to your head!” Mabel looked between him and Stan, her hand quivering an inch above the button.

 

“Look into my eyes Mabel! You really think I’m a bad guy?”

 

“Yes!” Dipper yelled. “Shut it down Mabel!”

 

“Mabel please!”

 

“Ten, nine…”

 

Mabel’s hand was against the button now. She was cutting it close but the sharp fear prodding at his insides lessened.

 

“Grunkle Stan…”

 

“Six, five…”

 

What was she waiting for?

 

“I trust you.” She let go, and something in him shattered. He was afraid, he was angry. He felt like he was going to throw up.

 

“Mabel, are you crazy?! We’re all gonna--”

 

“One…” A bright flash of light blinded them all. Dipper closed his eyes and still the light burned them. The air around the portal started to tremble and for a terrible moment he felt like his body was being compressed into a dense ball of matter and unraveled like a skein of yarn all at once. He could vaguely register his own voice screaming over the static in his ears.

 

The moment felt like an eternity but it ended almost as soon as it began, and everything stopped all at once, including the reversed gravity. He crashed into the ground and pushed himself up on shaking limbs. A man walked out of the portal, now broken and laying in a heap of scrap on the floor, and all he could think about was the way his lungs tightened when he looked at the remains.

 

Everything else aside from his own thoughts seemed hazy. Next thing he knew, Mabel was waving her hand in his face.

 

“Dipper! The author of the journals is our grunkle!” Journals? Oh, the journals. They seemed so inconsequential after the near-death of the entire known universe. The man from the portal did look like Stan, though. Dipper stumbled to his feet and approached him cautiously.

 

“You wrote the journals?”

 

“You’ve read my journals?” His apparent ‘grunkle’ shifted awkwardly on his feet.

 

“I-- yeah, I have…” Why wasn’t he more excited? All summer, Dipper wanted nothing else than to meet the author, but now he was in front of him, he didn’t feel a thing.

 

“Come on Dipper, you’ve been worshiping those journals all summer! Now you finally get to meet the author and you’re acting all grumpy for no reason!”

 

She really has no idea why he’s upset? No idea what she could have done? It hit him hard. ’She didn’t listen to me… she trusted a liar over me… she didn’t listen _she didn’t trust me_ **_she didn’t care_ ** \--’

 

“Dipper? Are you okay?” She reached for him and he jerked away.

 

 _No_.

 

“I’m _fine_.”

 

_Trust no one._

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not as happy with this one, but I feel like I needed to write it before the next part.


End file.
